Anyway, I had breakfast with a good friend and minister (read: someone who has been trained to deal with people's emotional shit) yesterday morning. She just listened as I told her what had happened and how scared I was about the future. I do feel like I'm at a point in my life when I'm ready to have a partnership with someone and get married. I'm scared that it will never happen for me.
I said, "I know there's really nothing anyone can say to make me feel better, but can you try?" And she said something along the lines of this:
I have seen many people in the midst of darkness--grief, loss, mourning, despair, hopelessness--just like where you are right now. And I have seen those people in time move into places of great joy and thriving and new opportunity, things they never could have predicted while in that dark place.That is the hope, isn't it?
"...those people in time move into places of great joy and thriving and new opportunity..." words of assurance.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's just hope that'll get you to move "into places of great joy and thriving and new opportunity". Give yourself time to grieve and heal. Cry, get angry, wish it could have work out differently, cry some more when you realize it it most likely won't, talk about it with friends, get mad at inconsiderate assholes, blog about it, etc. It sucks because you have to go through all that to get to the other side where you can think back on your relationship without feeling so hurt, betrayed an abandoned, the process won't happen over night... but when you do get there, you will be free to see new opportunities, you'll once again be able to see the joy in small things, and you will thrive.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, hopefully you find some small comfort in knowing that there are people out there thinking of you and pulling for you... even people you've never met who just read your blog. :)
Thank you, Molly. You are absolutely right. I feel like I'm riding on a roller coaster with a damn blindfold on.
ReplyDelete"Just move on already"?!?! You JUST broke up! What the hell is wrong with people? Break-ups are awful. The only people who could make you feel bad for FEELING BAD about breaking up are people without any emotions at all or people who have never been there. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteFeel what you want, and what you NEED, to feel. Fuck everyone who has a problem with it.
Katie, I totally concur. Where's the love, people? Where is the fucking love?
ReplyDeletePart of grieving is feeling the bad crap - crying and being angry and worrying. It's what helps you get over things.
ReplyDeleteIt does get better. I know that probably doesn't help now but it does. It might not be tomorrow or the next day but eventually it will hurt less.
I owe you an email - I'm being a total slacker!
I like that a lot - she sounds wise. Still sending you hugs!
ReplyDeleteI seriously had to go back and read my comment to make sure I didn't overstep any boundaries. (I didn't, did I?) I can't even IMAGINE what you're going through because I've never been through a break-up of this magnitude.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Molly's words. Get angry and give yourself time to grieve.
Big hugs, sweetie. Many of us have been where you are. Ignore people...they are probably TRYING to be helpful. I really think some of us feel these things more deeply and it really also depends on the relationship, so maybe they just can't relate?
ReplyDeleteAnyway...I was also painfully broken up with by my XH...it was not pretty for me for a long time. I won't lie..I was changed and I'm still sad for what I lost (namely some of that naivety and thoughts of happily ever after that those "get over it" folks say when they are reassuring you that your prince will come. I will NEVER be that girl again.)
You will go through many stages of grief...not nec in a set order, maybe some multiple times. It's all ok. Consider it an accomplishment if you get through another hour. You're doing great. Feel what you feel. Eventually, you will stop crying. I promise.
Hugs and more hugs.
I've been ruminating on this a bit, and I think maybe it's worth a thought. Have you heard of "Educated in Romance" by Holland and Eisenhart? It's an anthropological study that basically looks at how society says that "female success" highly emphasizes attractiveness & love life (whereas, for men, the emphasis is on everything else).
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to lie, this is the kind of book that always puts the words 'choices' and 'decisions' in quotation marks :-P
To what extent do you think this need to be married is simply because society judges you/me/us, as females, harsher for not having a mate?
It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I'm not really sure where it's gotten me, haha. I dunno.
Good luck :)
At the risk of sounding awfully cheesy... here's a quote I ABSOLUTELY LIVE BY:
ReplyDeleteI beg you... to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without ever noticing it, live your way into the answer. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
PS --> I rather have a tooth pulled with a pair of pliers than go through a bad break-up.